


Photo Album

by reeby10



Series: Marvel Shipping Games 2014 [17]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet Ending, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:43:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2686508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/pseuds/reeby10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He turned the pages slowly, each one full of pictures of him and Phil and Marian and their friends. Their life story was held in the pages, something he never thought he’d get to see, especially not with Phil gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photo Album

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [Marvel Shipping Games](http://marvelshippinggames.dreamwidth.org/) Main Round 1, but wasn't chosen for our team submission. The prompt was "memories."
> 
> This takes place after The Avengers and disregards Agents of SHIELD, etc.

Clint found Marian huddled in the corner of her closet, crying her eyes out.

It wasn’t the first time it had happened and he had an uncomfortable feeling that it wouldn’t be the last, but it didn’t make it any easier to see. His heart clenched at the sight of his little girl so hurt, so upset, and he didn’t know how to make things better. He was hurting too, but he had a lot more experience and more friends to help him through. Marian was just five and she’d lost half of her entire world only a few short months before.

She’d been with her babysitter during the Battle of New York just like she was any time he and Phil were both working at the same time. Clint’s position at the time hadn’t really been typical, though, and he hadn’t remembered that that’s where she would be until hours after the battle finished. Until he’d gotten word that Phil was among the casualties.

After that, things had been bad. Marian was almost inconsolable for weeks and Clint just didn’t know how to be a single parent, even if his duties as a SHIELD agent were on hold and the Avengers had basically fallen apart. Phil had always been the one that knew how to be a good parent, Clint felt like he was just being carried along as he tried not to make too much of a mess.

Marian let out a particularly loud sob, and Clint immediately shook himself from his reverie. His little girl needed him; he could dwell on the other things later.

Stepping softly, he moved from the doorway into the closet and knelt down. Marian flinched, but calmed a little when she realized it was him, curling against his chest even while she continued to cry.

“Hey, baby girl,” Clint whispered, planting kiss in the center of her head, “what’s wrong?”

She sniffled for a moment before turning to look at him with big, red-rimmed eyes. “I miss Papa,” she choked out, burying her face back in his chest as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

“I know, I do too,” Clint said, feeling his heart clench in pain again, but tried to hold it in check. They’d lost the glue to hold their little family together and it was up to him to try to mend the cracks as best he could.

They sat there for awhile, Clint lost track after a while, distracted by the distress of his daughter. Finally she was asleep, exhausted from grief, so he stood carefully, still holding her to his chest. Her face was red splotched from all the crying and he wished with all his heart Phil was back with them. He’d always been better at things like this.

At the very least, he wished there was some way to alleviate at least a little of her grief. She was too young to have such an enormous hole in her heart; he at least had been a few years older when his parents, who hadn’t exactly been a positive presence in his life, died. He’d talked to her like the SHIELD psych specialists had suggested, but it hadn’t seemed to do as much good as he’d hoped.

While he tucked Marian into bed, Clint let his eyes wander around the room, noticing how seemingly nothing had changed since the last time he’d been in there with Phil. Marian hadn’t wanted to play with any of her toys or read any of her books since he’d picked her up and told her her papa wasn’t coming home. Their lives had pretty much frozen in time since that moment.

Clint pauses as his eyes passed over the bookshelf, a large binder sitting on the top catching his eye. It looked like the album he and Phil had bought just before Marian was born, but they’d never had the time to fill it with pictures, so he wasn’t sure why it was in her room. He walked over and pulled it down, a little shocked that it was far heavier than he’d remembered it to be. He was shocked again when he opened it to find it was full of pictures.

He turned the pages slowly, each one full of pictures of him and Phil and Marian and their friends. Their life story was held in the pages, something he never thought he’d get to see, especially not with Phil gone.

Drops of water appeared on the page Clint was looking at and he reached up to his face to find that he was crying. He stood there, frozen. Even when he found out Phil was dead, even when he had to explain to Marian, he hadn’t cried. He’d had other responsibilities, he didn’t have the luxury of mourning as he should have been able to.

As he stood there, the tears devolved into quiet sobs. In minutes the sobs were tearing out of his chest, loud and uncontrollable. He slid to floor, hunched over and clutching the photo album so tightly that he’d be afraid he’d tear the pages if he were a little more coherent.

“Daddy?”

Clint jerked around to look at bed where Marian was sitting, one fist rubbing the sleep from her eye. “Hey, honey, what’s wrong?” he said, trying to smile, only too conscious that there were tears still dripping down his face.

“Why are you crying, Daddy?” she asked, face scrunched up in confusion. Clint realized she’d never seen him cry. Hardly anyone had except for Phil.

“I’m just happy,” he replied, not wanting to scare her. As soon as the words left his mouth he froze because somehow, they were true. He was sad, yes, and grieving, but the happiness of having these pictures to remember Phil by was far stronger.

Marian tilted her head. “Why are you happy?”

Clint held up the album. “Because I was thinking about Papa,” he said, smile coming easier now.

“But Papa’s gone,” Marian said quietly, chin beginning to wobble as she worked up to more tears.

“I know,” Clint replied kindly, opening his arms. She immediately got out of bed and cuddled into his chest. “I was remembering all the good times we had with him. We have a lot of happy memories, don’t we, baby?”

Marian looked at him for a moment with narrowed eyes, then nodded. “Yeah,” she said, looking down at the album in his hands. “There are pictures?”

Clint smiled. “Lots of pictures. You wanna look at them with me?” he asked, waiting for her to nod again. He flipped to the front of the album and smiled fondly at the blurry picture of Phil and him facing off in the rain. “Here are some from before you were born. Did Papa and I ever tell you how we met?”

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit welcome. If you like my fic, come chat with me [on tumblr](http://voldiebuns.tumblr.com/) or maybe [buy me a coffee](http://ko-fi.com/A7274PC).


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